As mentioned in our previous PK library post, our PK students have had the opportunity to experience and explore the creative work of author and illustrator Mo Willems by listening to some of his stories (both in English and Mandarin), like the Piggie & Gerald books, Knuffle Bunny, Cat the Cat and others. They were encouraged to share what they were noticing and wondering about. What stood out for our budding inquirers was that his books are all funny and they wondered why he makes them so funny ("Is he a funny guy?"). Amongst others, they also thought that "he draws nicely" which made them wonder how he had learned to draw like this. Further, they wanted to know what comes first in the making of his books - the words or the pictures - just to mention a few of their noticings and wonderings.

We found some answers to these wonderings while watching the above video together, discovering that his goal is to make reading fun for everyone, the youngest readers as well as the grown-ups who read the books to the children. Our students (and some of us grown-ups too) were surprised to learn that in the making of his books, Mo Willems goes back and forth between words and pictures. Most of us would have thought the words come first, the illustrations next. 

Since Mo Willems encourages his readers to create their own stories using his characters, we watched a tutorial together, in which Mo Willems showed us step-by-step how to draw Piggie, one of his most famous characters. Our PK students loved it! They were paying close attention to his instructions on the screen and then tried it out themselves. You should have seen the smiles, the excited shouts of, "Look! It's Piggie!". It was wonderful!

In addition to inquiring about Mo Willems, our PK students continued enjoying choosing books during their check out time as well as listening to stories in Mandarin. It is great seeing them explore what our library has to offer in both fiction and nonfiction. Usually our PK students have very specific ideas about the books they are looking for. I encourage you to ask your child about the library books they bring home. I bet they can tell you exactly why they chose a particular book as they already put much thought into their book choices.

We have had a great start to the year with our PK students, especially since our new students are  able to benefit from the expertise of our returning students, who seem to enjoy modeling and helping out. No matter what we do - listening to a read-aloud, sharing our ideas about the story, or choosing books, we can count on some of our returning students to demonstrate how it is done or help out by for example guiding a younger student to the circulation desk for check out.

Since the start of the year, we have already looked at how we choose and check out books, our young readers doing a wonderful job in exploring what our library has to offer and confidently asking for help in finding books on specific topics they are interested in. They take time looking through the books - often also with a friend - before deciding whether this is the book they want to take home.

With the help of a fun read-aloud, There's a Dragon in Your Book by Tom Fletcher, we had the opportunity to talk about taking good care of our books.

And then, we embarked on our first author inquiry of the year. Those of you familiar with our library program and this blog know that we conduct author inquiries in all Primary grades throughout the year. They are a wonderful way of introducing students to authors and series, allowing students to practise important inquiry skills in the process; for example how to express a wondering and how to go about finding answers to these wonderings. The inquiries always create much interest in an author's books, like it is the case right now with the books by Mo Willems. Mo Willems is the author and illustrator of books such as Knuffle Bunny, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and the extremely popular Piggie & Gerald series. Our PK students love his funny stories, which they have been able to listen to both in English and Chinese.

We look forward to learning more about Mo Willems alongside our PK students this year.